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Some tiny beads of inspiration and reflections about life.(By Hans Van Rostenberghe)********
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Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Kindness or integrity?

Is it better to choose kindness or integrity?

I have a bit of an A
personality and in the past, I have found fault with many people. I used
to confront, without much thinking, not being kind but feeling right.
This has brought myself sometimes in some trouble. Sometimes the trouble
was worth it, more often not. I have in the process definitely hurt
people unnecessarily, which causes afterwards regrets and sorrow.

Over
the years I have mellowed down quite a bit. I have slowly learned, I
think, to postpone the immediate confrontation. This eliminated the
impulsive (angry) reaction, that was causing often more damage than
good. Giving myself some time to digest and look at it from a distance,
often made me see how small and unworthy of further attention the case
was. However if after a few days, the thing was still bothering me, I
was capable of addressing the matter in a much more efficient way than
during my younger years when I give more in to my type A thing. This
being said, this does not mean I succeed all the time to avoid immediate
confrontation. I think a certain level of self control is something we
can exercise like our muscles and become stronger in it over time, but
it never reaches absoluteness, I think.

As time went
on, I have become a bit of a believer in unconditional love. That would
favor the kind over the integrity approach. However we still need to
remain assertive and not give up on trying to improve situations and
conditions around us. Nowadays I tend to pray for guidance on how to
deal best with situations, especially if they tend to become very
difficult. If I do that, persistently, almost always solutions present
themselves in sometimes unexpected ways.

If I sincerely
look back on my own life, I have not always been an angel myself. That
is to put it softly. I think my biggest asset over time, has been my
regular reflection. I have often tried hard to do things right but so
often too, it went terribly wrong. But reflecting on the mistakes and
also on our perceived successes, is something I have always enjoyed and
has contributed (and is still contributing) in a major way to my
personal growth.

Here is a thought that appeared in my
head while writing the above: If people do things that are obviously
wrong, they often do quite a number of (other) things obviously right as
well. If we focus on the right things for long enough, we may manage to
become close enough of friends to guide and inspire them in a very
positive way. (???)